Trump has now been back in office for a year. To help make sense of the past twelve months, on Tuesday I hosted a live Substack conversation with friend of the pod and author of the Wake Up To Politics newsletter, Gabe Fleischer.We began by assessing Trump’s accomplishments and failings by the standards he set at the beginning of his second term. We also discussed how Americans have reacted and took a closer look at the areas where Trump’s new assertions of presidential power have been allowed to stand and where they’ve been batted down.One of the themes of the conversation was that there’s often so much going on that it can be hard to actually follow a single story from beginning to end. We try to tie up some of those loose ends where possible. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

I hope everyone had a nice long weekend! Today’s episode is part two of our mailbag episodes, focusing on some of the more esoteric questions that listeners asked.Part one focused on current events. If you’re curious about how the public is reacting to the surge in ICE activity, possibility of military intervention in Iran, or the politicization of the Department of Justice, I encourage you to listen to that as well.Today we answer your questions, including: Are high profile politicians able to effectively rebrand? Why were polls noticeably better for Democrats right after the 2025 elections? What does it mean that there are a record number of independents in America? And who are the Republicans in polls that say they don’t approve of Trump — Never Trumpers, or people who voted for him and have since soured? We even share some career advice at one listener’s request.Joining me to dig through the mailbag is Lenny Bronner, senior data scientist at the Washington Post. A reminder to submit your own questions on Substack, on social media, or at galen@gdpolitics.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.I like to say that this podcast is driven by three principles: curiosity, rigor and a sense of humor. You, dear listeners, share those qualities, certainly when it comes to curiosity.I collected all the questions you submitted since we last recorded a mailbag episode at the end of November and even if I just limited us to the best ones, we’d be looking at a three hour podcast at least.I didn’t want to let your questions go unanswered, so I decided to sort them into two categories and we are doing two mailbag episodes. The theme of the first is current events and the second is esoteric political questions. Next week we’ll go esoteric; today we are doing current events and there’s a lot to discuss.There’s the ICE surge in Minneapolis, shooting of Renee Good and related protests, the federal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome Powell, major protests in Iran and threats of military action by President Trump, Democrat Mary Peletola is running for Senate in Alaska, the White House met with Denmark and Greenland, and there’s the story that was the only thing anyone could talk about just last week: Venezuela.We seem to be cycling between a different major headline just about every hour and with me to help make sense of it all is dear friend of the pod and senior data scientist at the Washington Post, Lenny Bronner.Also, a couple quick updates: 1) Our live show on January 27th is sold out. We can’t wait to see you there! Paid subscribers will get a recording of the show after the fact. 2) Our seasonal merch shop is going away at the end of the month, so get your merch at gdpolitics.com/merch. 3) A reminder to submit your own questions on Substack, on social media, or at galen@gdpolitics.com.

Heads up: Our first live show of 2026 is scheduled for Tuesday, January 27th at the Comedy Cellar in New York City! Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and I are recording a live 2028 Democratic Primary draft. You can get tickets here.We are less than two months away from the start of the midterm primary calendar. Things will kick off in Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas on March 3rd. We’re going to have plenty of coverage of those elections throughout the year and, of course, heading into the big election in November. You should expect a table setting episode in your feeds before too long.On today’s episode we hear from one of the more unique candidates running this cycle: Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor of Georgia, who is now running for governor as a Democrat.He began his political career as a Republican in the state legislature and then served as lieutenant governor alongside current Governor Brian Kemp from 2019 to 2023. He became better known on the national scene after the 2020 election, as one of a number of Republicans in the state who pushed back strongly against Trump’s attempts to overturn the results in Georgia.He chose not to run for reelection in 2022, endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 and formally became a Democrat last year. Now he’s running for governor in a Democratic primary field that includes former Atlanta mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and former DeKalb County CEO, Michael Thurmond.On the Republican side, Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones is competing against Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who notably rejected Trump’s request that he “find 11,780 votes” in 2020.Democrats have not won the governor’s mansion in Georgia since 1998, so will this be the year they do it? And will Geoff Duncan be the one to try? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

I said on Monday’s podcast that we all needed to get a bigger imagination, so here we are. Let’s talk about Greenland.After capturing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife over the weekend, the White House’s focus seems to have turned to the Danish territory of Greenland.It’s the largest island in the world, roughly the size of Western Europe, with a population of just 56,000. Denmark colonized it in the 18th century and today it’s a semi-autonomous part of the Danish Kingdom.According to President Trump, we “need” it. Trump advisor Stephen Miller told CNN this week, “obviously, Greenland should be part of the United States.” He went on to say, “nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland.”Reportedly, Marco Rubio told members of Congress that Trump actually wants to buy Greenland and that this posturing is a negotiation tactic, but White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt released a statement on the subject saying that, “utilizing the U.S. Military is always an option at the Commander in Chief’s disposal.”Democrats have rejected the Greenland idea and many Republicans, in a rare break from Trump, have as well. Among Americans, the idea of acquiring Greenland is 30 to 45 percentage points underwater and 85 percent of Greenlanders also reject it.For Denmark’s part, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement to “stop the threats” and that, “the U.S. has no right to annex one of the three countries in the Danish Kingdom.” She also said an attack would end NATO.Denmark has a population of 6 million with about 16,000 active military personnel. The U.S. military, for its part, has 1.3 million active personnel. Denmark is also a longtime U.S. ally. They were one of only four European countries to invade Iraq alongside the U.S.I wanted to get a perspective on Trump’s threats from inside the Danish national security community, so joining me on today’s episode is Peter Viggo Jakobsen, professor in the Department of Strategy and War Studies at the Royal Danish Defense College in Copenhagen. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Heads up: Our first live show of 2026 is scheduled for Tuesday, January 27th at the Comedy Cellar in New York City! Nate Silver, Clare Malone, and I are recording a live 2028 Democratic Primary draft. You can get tickets here.If you listened to the end of our 2025 time capsule episode, you heard me say that I might have to put a disclaimer at the top of the episode because we invaded Venezuela in between when we recorded the podcast and when we published it. Well, that didn’t quite happen, but we weren’t so far off.Early Saturday morning the U.S. launched a series of strikes on Venezuela, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and brought them to New York, where Maduro was indicted in 2020 and Flores was added to an updated indictment.It’s an uncertain moment for Venezuela and American policy towards the country. President Trump said during his Saturday press conference, “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” without giving much more detail than that.He suggested that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez would comply with U.S. demands under threat of further military action, though Rodríguez subsequently referred to the U.S. intervention as illegal armed aggression and stated that Maduro remains the president of Venezuela.There are plenty of questions about the legality of Trump’s approach to Venezuela, the internal dynamics of the country and how this compares to past American foreign intervention. We covered a good amount of that in our December 18th episode titled “Is Venezuela The Next Iraq?” and I encourage folks to listen to that if they haven’t already.In today’s episode, Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe join me to discuss how Americans are already reacting to U.S. involvement in Venezuela and how it could reverberate politically from here. In classic fashion, we also dissect some questionable uses of data, including tracking of pizza orders near the Pentagon and alleged insider trading on online betting markets. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comHappy almost new year! 2025 has been a big year for this GD podcast. It’s the year of our birth, of course, but we didn’t stop there. We hosted live shows, got rebranded, created merch, and even made some news. An enormous thank you to everyone who joined us this year 🙏. You made this all possible.2025 was also a big year for America. We began our semiquincentennial year, for the second time ever a U.S. president was inaugurated to a nonconsecutive term. The country also got a rebrand of sorts. There’s more gold detailing on the walls these days and the East Wing no longer exists.A lot more happened, but I don’t want to give away today’s episode. To mark the end of 2025 we are building a time capsule and filling it with numbers that represent the year in politics. I asked friends of the podcast Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe to choose five numbers each they’d like to place in the capsule. I also have plenty of numbers of my own. The bad news is that only 10 numbers fit in the time capsule, so we have to duke it out to see who gets their way. We also shared new year’s resolutions for the two parties and ourselves in 2026.As a sneak preview, here are the 10 numbers we settled on, without any indication of what they represent. See if you can guess!

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThis is the second installment of “Roman Empire” elections, in which friends of the podcast Jacob Rubashkin and Leah Askarinam join me to discuss the elections that we just can’t stop thinking about. If you missed the first installment, definitely start there. We talked about the 2000 election (of course), the crazy turn of events that indirectly resulted in Glenn Youngkin becoming the governor of Virginia, and the even crazier turn of events that links the election of Barack Obama to the reboot of Star Trek.Today the fun doesn’t stop. We discuss the nomination of Andrew Johnson at the Republican convention of 1864 (he ended up taking the oath of office blackout drunk), the story of the only dead person in U.S. history to win an Senate race, and how the Republican party might be different today if Mitt Romney won the presidency in 2012.Today’s episode is for paid subscribers and will cut off shortly for free subscribers. If you are not a paid subscriber, now is a great time to upgrade! If you are a paid subscriber, thank you! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

In 2022, a Swedish influencer told her followers on Instagram to ask the men in their lives about the Roman Empire. Her instinct was that men, for some reason, have plenty of thoughts about the ancient civilization. She turned out to be correct.The suggestion led to a proliferation of videos on social media of women asking men how often they think about the Roman Empire. For some men, it was daily. For others, weekly.(This is the part where I admit that as a teenager I got a large SPQR henna tattoo on my forearm, although technically those are the initials of the Roman Republic, not the Roman Empire, and with that distinction, I am probably already telling on myself.)In any case, a meme was born. What began as a question of how often men think about the Roman Empire, morphed into the idea that any topic that occupies an inordinate amount of one’s mental space is one’s own personal Roman Empire.For example, someone might say their Roman Empire is 2003-era pop culture or The Titanic. You can quickly fall down a Reddit rabbit hole where people share obsessions as wide ranging as women’s bible studies groups and Chicago’s alleyways.Now that I’ve got all of the Boomers who listen to this podcast up to speed (hi, dad), you have the context for today’s episode, which is “Roman Empire elections.” Not elections that happened in the Roman Empire (which, again, wouldn’t be possible because the start of the empire marked the end of representative government), but instead American elections that take up an inordinate amount of our mental space.Dear friends of the podcast Leah Askarinam, Jacob Rubashkin and I came up with this idea while we were recording a different podcast a while back, so this week we are actually indulging. Part 2 will publish Tuesday, December 23rd for paid subscribers. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.On Monday’s podcast, while we were talking about shifting political landscapes, I quipped that perhaps by the midterms we would be at war with Venezuela. If you keep up with the news coming out of the Caribbean, it seems like it could be a lot sooner than that.Things appear to be escalating quickly. The U.S. has launched 26 strikes in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific since early September, killing 99 people, per tracking at the New York Times.The stated goal of the strikes has been to stop drug traffickers that the Trump administration has labeled terrorist organizations, but there are questions about the legality of the strikes, as well as questions about whether the goal is really to put pressure on Maduro with the hopes of ousting him.Speaking of pressure, last week the U.S. seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, and this week President Trump announced a “complete blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers going to and from Venezuela. This comes closer to threatening the lifeblood of the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves and oil makes up 90-95 percent of its export revenue.The U.S. has also deployed military assets to the region capable of land strikes and disabling Venezuela’s defenses and Trump has said he’s authorized covert CIA operations in the country.To better understand the unfolding conflict with Venezuela, I invited on Michael O’Hanlon on today’s podcast. He’s the Phil Knight Chair in Defense and Strategy at the Brookings Institution and author of the forthcoming book To Dare Mighty Things: U.S. Defense Strategy Since the Revolution.

The politics of healthcare are again front and center in Washington. Last week, Senate Democrats’ proposal to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years failed to get 60 votes, as did a Republican proposal that would end the subsidies but provide direct payments to some Americans to cover healthcare costs.Monday, December 15th is also the last day for enrollment in insurance that begins January 1st on the ACA marketplace. All that is a long way of saying that the cake appears mostly baked. Healthcare coverage costs will rise dramatically for millions of Americans next year and many will opt out of coverage altogether.A bipartisan group is still holding out hope of coming to some compromise, but if that does happen it will likely be after Americans have already started to feel those costs. So what exactly will the impact be and what do Americans think about it? On today’s podcast we dig into the data.We also take a broader look at President Trump’s approval rating and the recent claim from a friend of the pod that, “Trump’s Approval Ratings Are Low Again. This Time It Might Matter.” Plus we discuss Indiana Republicans’ rejection of an effort to gerrymander their state. Is it a story about redistricting or is it really a story about the power limitations of a lame duck president? And is that a leading question?Joining me on the podcast to keep me honest are Mary Radcliffe, head of research at FiftyPlusOne, and Nathaniel Rakich, managing editor at VoteBeat. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett has jumped into the Texas Senate primary with just three months to go until Election Day. She’s controversial, at times outright offensive, and gets the cable news part of her party very excited. She also appears to be leading in early primary polling. (Sound familiar?) So, is the candidate The Atlantic is calling “a Democrat for the Trump era” up to the task of flipping Texas? Frankly, is any Democrat up to the task?On today’s podcast we take a look at how 2026 primaries are shaping up around the country in both the House and Senate. Beyond Texas, we check in on the latest in Maine, Michigan, and Georgia and debate whether the dividing lines are mainly generational, ideological, or just a fighter mentality. We also look at the results of recent elections in Miami and Tennessee where Democrats over-performed.Lastly, a case at the Supreme Court this week considers how much money the political parties should be able to spend in coordination with candidates. Should the relatively low caps be kept in place or should the flood gates be opened? With me to talk about it all is Deputy Editor of Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin.

If you are tired of hearing about how messy American politics are, today I’m offering you a reprieve. You’re going to hear about how messy British politics are.Last week I was in London, exploring the city and speaking with journalists, friends and strangers alike about life in Britain. I visited a couple newsrooms and toured parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions. The big news of the day was the Labour government’s budget proposal and, despite their largest majority in nearly 30 years, Labour seems to be facing challenges on all sides.If American politics can feel disappointing or frustrating, wait till you hear Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s approval rating: net -52 percentage points. By comparison President Trump, facing his own second term low of net -14 points, looks utterly popular.Today we get into the challenges facing the Labour party and much more – the rise of the populist Right in the UK and Europe, relations with the US, and yes, people are still talking about Brexit.To do this I reassembled the team from the dearly departed Talking Politics podcast. The former hosts, Helen Thompson and David Runciman, used to join me on the also departed FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast during the height of the Brexit drama. Think of this as the ghosts of two podcasts past.Helen Thompson is a professor of political economy at Cambridge and author of the book “Disorder: Hard times in the 21st Century.” David Runciman is an honorary professor of politics at Cambridge and the host of the “Past Present Future” podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Oftentimes when we talk about what divides the United States we talk about things like education, race, gender, or class. My guest today makes the argument that there’s something else fundamental at play, stretching back hundreds of years, to well before the founding of the country: the regional cultures that were developed by the people who settled America.It may seem like a stretch to say that after waves of immigration and internal migration, technological and social change, that the pilgrims, quakers, aristocrats, and pioneers are still culturally with us. But Colin Woodard argues that you can’t actually understand our contemporary politics and the fights we’re having without that context.In his previous book “American Nations” he laid out what he described as the 11 different “nations” – or culturally distinct regions – within America. In his new book “Nations Apart” he looks at the political and social differences across them on everything from voting, to health outcomes, to gun violence.He also discusses what kinds of common narratives have united us in the past and what might work again today based on public opinion research. Colin is the director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University.

If everything is going to plan, I am on vacation this week. Fear not! I have recorded podcasts ahead of time so you’ll still have two episodes this week. However, don’t be surprised if something crazy has happened in the world and you don’t hear it mentioned in conversation. I haven’t forgotten, it’s just that whatever crazy thing we are now dealing with had not yet happened when the podcasts were recorded. If past is prologue, hold onto your seats, the news cycle rarely behaves while I’m away.Today we are opening up the mailbag to sort through our backlog of listener mail. Listeners have been sending in great questions lately! As a reminder, you can always share your questions in the paid subscriber chat at gdpolitics.com. You can also send questions to galen@gdpolitics.com and reach me via the usual social media channels.On today’s episode we discuss the power of celebrity in politics, the possibility of the Democratic presidential primary moving to a ranked choice voting system in 2028, the state of the Republican Texas Senate primary, and much more. With me to do it all is friend of the podcast and data scientist at the Washington Post, Lenny Bronner.P.S. — I am currently in London for a combination of work and fun. Feel free to use the channels above to share any recs! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Even in our topsy turvy political world, last Friday stood out as one for the books. President Trump seemed to embrace New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, complimenting his underdog victory, saying he thinks “he’s going to do some things that are going to be really great,” and even smilingly saying that it’s ok if Mamdani calls him a fascist.Just hours later, one of Trump’s formerly fiercest defenders, Marjorie Taylor Greene, announced that she will resign from Congress in the new year, after disagreements with Trump led him to brand her “Marjorie Traitor Greene” and threaten support for a primary opponent against her. This all would have been hard to dream up just a couple months ago, but does it say anything meaningful about our politics?On today’s episode we also check in on the state of gerrymandering around the country after a federal panel of judges struck down Texas’s new map designed to add five seats to Republicans’ ranks in the House. If it stands, in a turn of fate, Democrats could end up being the net winners of the ongoing mid-decade redistricting spat. That decision now heads to the Supreme CourtAnd finally, Happy Thanksgiving week! Have you heard of the pre-Thanksgiving dinner “cousin walk?” It’s apparently when the younger members of the family get stoned before sitting down for turkey. The idea has become popularized online and the Wall Street Journal even called it a “full-blown commercial holiday,” with dispensaries reporting the second biggest sales of the year for “Green Wednesday.” (Second to 420). But is this all coming at a time when Americans are turning against marijuana?With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod: head of research at FiftyPlusOne, Mary Radcliffe, and managing editor of Votebeat, Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.I was at a conference earlier this week giving a talk about politics. These things can be kind of fun. I get up on a stage, do my song and dance, and show folks a bunch of charts.As I was getting into the elevator, one of the attendees stepped in beside me and I asked him how he was enjoying the conference. He sighed and said, “Well, everything is about AI. Even the sessions that are supposed to be about other things end up being about AI.”His comment struck me because that’s what so many topics can feel like these days, whether it’s the workplace and economy, social media and entertainment, our own homes and vehicles, or even matchmaking and intimacy — and of course politics and geopolitics.Some of the political debates over AI have faded into the background as the Trump administration’s laissez-faire approach to regulation has set the tone in Washington and Democrats have had little to no power to challenge it, if they wanted to. But it’s probably a good bet that political debates over the role of Artificial Intelligence in society won’t remain in the background for long.Recently AI stocks have been in pullback mode and chatter about a bubble has reemerged. “Is it a blip, a dip, a pullback or the beginning of the end?” reads one headline. And lately, hardly a day goes by without another company announcing a reduction in its white collar job force.Polling also suggests Americans are somewhere between skeptical and pessimistic about the future of AI. They see it as doing more harm than good when it comes to people’s ability to think creatively, have meaningful relationships with each other, and make difficult decisions. And importantly, this is not an area where Americans are highly polarized along party lines either.The combination of those two things: the possibility of a crisis or displacement in which AI is seen as central and the lack of clear party divisions means that the new technology may be in a unique position to reshape politics.That is the topic of today’s episode with David Byler, public opinion researcher and VP at National Research Group. We also get into questions about the use of AI in polling and a “Good Data, Bad Data, or Not Data?” question from a listener.

When President Trump became the first Republican in 20 years to win the national popular vote in 2024, one Republican pollster was in a position to say: “I told you so.”Patrick Ruffini, the co-founder of Echelon Insights, had written a book the year prior titled, “Party of the People: Inside the Multiracial Populist Coalition Remaking the GOP.”He wrote, “The Republicans used to be seen as the party of wealthy elites and the Democrats the party of blue collar workers—and now that’s being turned upside down. Because of this, the ‘demography is destiny’ ideas of eternal Democratic majorities never materialized. And now it’s Republicans who are on offense with voting blocs who represent a decisive majority of the country.”He went on to say, “Contrary to the media myths, the old divisions that separated Americans politically and in other ways by race and ethnicity are gradually fading. This is what’s making Republicans competitive in areas they never dreamed of winning before.”This was hard to deny in 2024. Republicans made decisive gains with voters of color and young voters, with eye-popping rightward shifts in places like Florida, Texas and the urban Northeast.But if Trump’s already souring polling this year hadn’t been reason for pause, this fall’s elections certainly were. As we discussed on last week’s podcast, in New Jersey, there appeared to be something of a snap back amongst Hispanic and young voters to coalitions resembling the 2020 election.In light of that, I invited Patrick Ruffini on the podcast to talk about the ever-shifting American political coalitions. He joined me to discuss his book on the forbearer to this podcast, but this was his first time on GD POLITICS. We also discussed his work at Echelon Insights highlighting the diversity of opinion that sits below the polarized red/blue surface of American politics. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.The news cycle is quickly moving beyond last week’s elections. There’s the end of the shutdown, the Jeffrey Epstein emails, new candidates jumping into the 2026 primaries, and the release of Robyn’s first single in seven years (that one is for the gays). Pretty soon much of our electoral attention will be focused on the midterms.Before we say goodbye to the 2025 elections, I wanted to do a post-mortem with the advantage of more data and less sleep deprivation. So, today we are focusing on some of the fundamental questions of the election, in particular: who, where, and why. The demographic and geographic breakdown of the vote and the issues driving voters.We compare what we saw in 2025 to past elections, discuss what is means for 2026, and answer listener questions about the results. At the end we also get to some of the other things going on in the world, namely those Jeffrey Epstein emails and the raging battle over what kind of candidates the parties should be running if they want to win at the midterms.With me for our 2025 election post-mortem is Lakshya Jain, head of political data at The Argument, Linley Sanders, polls and surveys reporter at the Associated Press, and Lenny Bronner, data scientist at the Washington Post.

It appears that the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end.On Sunday night, eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus joined Republicans in advancing a deal that would fund the government through January. It would also fund programs related to agriculture, military construction, and the legislative branch for most of 2026.What Democrats got in return is a promise to vote on the enhanced Obamacare subsidies in December, a reversal of government layoffs made during the shutdown, continued funding of the Government Accountability Office, and maintaining the office’s ability to sue the Trump administration.All eight of the senators who voted with Republicans are not up for reelection in 2026 and Democratic leadership criticized the deal, along with plenty of other Democratic lawmakers. So, in the end, which party came out on top?That’s the story we begin with and we also dig into how Washington is reacting to last week’s elections and the latest news from the Supreme Court. With me to do it is Gabe Fleisher, author of the Wake Up To Politics newsletter and friend of the podcast.P.S. We now have GD merch! You can find hats, tees, and totes here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Democrats swept the bigs races across the country on Tuesday night and many of the not-so-big races as well. They over-performed their polls in Virginia and New Jersey and Zohran Mamdani may be on track to secure an outright majority in the mayoral election in New York City. The victory for Proposition 50 in California was also resounding.In this late-night edition of the GD POLITICS podcast, Mary Radcliffe, Nathaniel Rakich, and Lenny Bronner joined me (after a five hour livestream, no less) to break down the results of the evening and what they do or don’t portend for future races. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Happy Election Day! Last night Nate Silver, Clare Malone and I gathered with a sold-out crowd at the Comedy Cellar in New York City to share out final pre-election takes, discuss the latest political controversies and take on audience members in a game of “Guess What Americans Think.”We discussed the wildly divergent polls in the New York City mayoral race, how we expect the results to play into the Democrats 2024 post-mortem, and what it could mean for national politics if New York City has a Democratic Socialist mayor.In a round of “Hot Take Hat,” we discussed the demolition of the East Wing, Graham Platner’s Nazi tattoo, Trump’s suggestion that the Senate scrap the filibuster, and more.During “Guess What Americans Think,” Nate and Clare competed against the audience to gauge how Americans feel about topics like the government shutdown, the National Guard in American cities, and the amount of money being wagered on political betting sites in the 2025 elections. We also answered incisive questions from the audience.Remember to tune in to the GD POLITICS livestream of election night beginning at 7 pm ET at gdpolitics.com.

We now have GD merch! You can find hats, tees, and totes here.Election Day 2025 is just about upon us. In a matter of hours New York City will elect a new mayor, Virginia and New Jersey will elect new governors, and California will decide whether to gerrymander its congressional maps. Millions of Americans across the country will also cast ballots in local elections.We’ve got a lot cooking at the GD POLITICS pod, so let me share the game plan. Today’s podcast is a tick tock of what to expect on election night: when the polls close, what races we’ll be watching, what data we’ll have, and what time we might get race calls.Monday night we have an election eve live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. It’s officially sold out and I look forward to seeing some of you there! Paid subscribers can expect to get a recording of that in their feeds Tuesday morning (so smash that paid subscriber button!).On election night, I’ll be live streaming at gdpolitics.com alongside some of your GD POLITICS faves starting at 7pm Eastern Time – Lenny Bronner, Nathaniel Rakich, Mary Radcliffe, Jacob Rubashkin, with some other guests stopping by. Wednesday morning we’ll have a reaction podcast in the feed.Hold on to your seats, folks! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Two election week updates to start: First, we have a live show coming up at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone on election eve, November 3rd. There are a few tickets left, so grab ‘em and join us!Second, I’ll be live-streaming on election night, November 4th, alongside some of your GD POLITICS faves. Think of this as friends having an election watch party that you’re invited to. Assuming we make it to midnight, it will also be my birthday, so don’t be surprised if you see a glass of wine or birthday shots. Grab your favorite beverage and join us starting at 7pm ET at gdpolitics.com.I’m first going to apologize to listeners who don’t care about New York City politics, because that’s what today’s entire episode is about. Though I wouldn’t skip just yet; I promise it will be interesting.For our New York-minded friends (or people who just get a kick out of Democratic Party drama) today is your day! We are just five days out from a New York mayoral election that has been nothing if not attention grabbing, and, in its own special way, reflective of the complicated city the next mayor will govern.Let’s begin with the spark notes version of the past 8 months…It all started with incumbent mayor Eric Adams switching his party identification to Independent, acknowledging that his corruption scandals and relationship with President Trump would prevent him from winning renomination in a Democratic primary.Then, there was the assured primary victory for the also scandal-plagued three term-governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, which, of course, was not assured after all. Thirty-three year old Democratic Socialist assemblyman Zohran Mamdani won the primary by 13 points, after making the cost of living his defining issue.Cuomo vowed to continue on as an Independent, while the Democratic establishment remained wary of endorsing Mamdani. Mamdani’s past statements about defunding the police, globalizing the intifada, and more – which hadn’t gotten much play during the primary – came to the fore.But while Mamdani has struggled to reach 50 percent support in the polls, anti-Mamdani forces haven’t had much luck either. The scandals and lack of charisma that plagued Cuomo in the primary, haven’t gone away. Curtis Sliwa, the – perhaps you could say – odd ball Republican candidate, who’s been a debate favorite for his old-school New York zingers, has wallowed in the teens. Though he told the press he’d only drop out if a Mack Truck hit him and he couldn’t be resuscitated in the ICU.While incumbent mayor Eric Adams did drop out after polling in the high single digits, his endorsement of Cuomo hasn’t made up the difference for Cuomo. Throughout all of this, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and New York Governor Kathy Hochul have concluded, like just about everyone, that Mamdani will win the election and that they are better off endorsing.A similar conclusion about the inevitability of Mamdani from business leaders, online bettors, and political analysts alike hasn’t stopped the candidates from a brawl down the final stretch. For my part, I’ve spent more than one November in Wisconsin, and the political ads in the city right now are next level.So that gets us to where we are today. To elaborate much more, joining me is Michael Lange, the author of the newsletter “The Narrative Wars”. The big question now facing Mamdani is whether he can win an outright majority of New York City voters. The answer will shape his likely tenure. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

We have a live show coming up on November 3rd at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Nate Silver and Clare Malone. Come join us for a rowdy election eve!We are one week away from Election Day 2025, so this week we’re zooming in on the biggest contests of the year. Today it’s Virginia, New Jersey, and California. Later in the week we’ll take a detailed political tour of New York City’s vastly different neighborhoods.In Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger currently leads Republican Winsome Earle-Sears in the race for Governor by an average of 8 points. Underneath that top line number there’s plenty of variation, with recent polls ranging from a 5 point lead to a 13 point lead for Spanberger. The Attorney General’s race, in which Democrat Jay Jones has had to apologize for text messages that promoted political violence, is significantly closer.Meanwhile in New Jersey, Democrat Mikie Sherill leads Republican Jack Ciattarelli by 6 points on average. Most polls there have shown a mid-single digit race. In the legislatures in both states, Democrats appear assured to maintain their majorities or grow them.We also take a look at areas of Virginia and New Jersey that could give us and indication of how different parts of the electorate are reacting to Trump 2.0. There are the wealthy Northern Virginia and Northern Jersey suburbs, large Latino communities also in northern Jersey, and large Black communities in Hampton Roads, Virginia.If you stick around until the end, we also get to the latest Graham Platner polling in Maine.With me to do it all is Chaz Nuttycombe, executive director of State Navigate, which covers state-level politics around the country from a data perspective, and Mary Radcliffe, who also works at State Navigate and runs the new polling aggregation site FiftyPlusOne. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Shortly after I launched this podcast, I had a guest on who caught folks attention. Her name was Joan C. Williams, a law professor at UC San Francisco, and she joined me to talk about her new book, “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back.”She spoke straightforwardly about why the cultural values of America’s liberal elites and working class are different. As she said, working class values reflect working class lives. And she described how a strict adherence to elite values by Liberals creates challenges for a Democratic Party in pursuit of a majority coalition. After all, less than 40 percent of American adults have a college degree.It turns out that Joan became something of a listener to this GD podcast herself. A few weeks ago, she sent me an email saying that she listened to an episode I did about whether there are electoral advantages to being moderate. She told me she had just written an op-ed in the Boston Globe about what politicos mean when they talk about moderation, and that there are many different types of so-called moderation, not all of which have the same electoral advantages.I told her to come back on the podcast and talk to me about it and that’s what we’re doing today. And speaking of liberal elitism, Joan joins me from Siena, Italy where she has been writing about class divides from the 13th century and how they relate to our class divides today.

We have a live show coming up on November 3rd at the Comedy Cellar in New York City with Clare Malone and Nate Silver. Come join us for a rowdy election eve!Maine Democrats have themselves a primary contest between the current governor Janet Mills and former Marine and oyster farmer Graham Platner in their bid to oust Senator Susan Collins next year. On its face, it looks like a battle for the soul of the party, though Platner’s recently resurfaced comments on Reddit could disrupt his momentum.On today’s podcast we take a look at the contours of that race and what’s at stake in the Voting Rights Act case at the Supreme Court. Nate Cohn at the New York Times is calling it the “case that could hand the House to Republicans.”We also get some updates on the 2025 elections, which are just two weeks away. It’s debate season and we’ve now seen gubernatorial debates in Virginia and New Jersey and a meme generating mayoral debate in New York City. Think parade politics, bodega orders, and New Yorkers’ favorite kind of virtue signaling: subway ridership.With me to discuss it all is reporter at the Associated Press Leah Askarinam and chief elections analyst at Decision Desk HQ Geoffrey Skelley. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

A question that political analysts often ask is whether something is “breaking through.” Is a piece of information reaching the masses? And is it not just the case that everyone knows it, but does everyone know that everyone else knows it too.Did we all see that Super Bowl ad? Did we all see that political gaffe? Or as today’s guest would put it: Is it common knowledge?When people know that something is known or believed by others, it can change human behavior. Think about the watershed moment that President Biden’s 2024 debate caused. Polling already showed that a majority of Americans – even a majority of Democrats – believed Biden was too old for the job. The debate didn’t so much change the facts, as it made it obvious that everyone else knew them too.Or think about the many Democratic voters in the 2020 primary who wanted to vote for the candidate they believed others would vote for. In an instance like that, simply publishing polling results can influence who voters might support.This is a phenomenon that shapes electoral politics, but it extends well beyond that, to stock market bubbles and bursts and online mob behavior. With me on today’s podcast to break it down is Steven Pinker. He’s a psychology professor at Harvard University and author of many books, the latest of which is, “When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . . Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Today’s episode focuses on something that few Americans and seemingly even few lawmakers in Washington are particularly preoccupied by: the fact that the government is shut down. Given the lack of urgency, how will it actually end?After that, we have something of a grab bag of topics. We talk about the axis of conflict that Democrats are hoping to wage the midterms on, that video of Democratic candidate for California governor Katie Porter bombing an interview that wasn’t even particularly hostile.We also look at some polling on free speech and political violence that should give folks cause for optimism, and the legal questions at play in President Trump’s attempts to send the National Guard to American cities.This is a conversation that Gabe Fleisher and I had last week on Substack Live. Gabe is the author of the newsletter Wake Up To Politics, which he started writing at the age of nine, so he’s got quite a wealth of knowledge.Relatively little has changed in shutdown negotiations since we chatted, except one note that Trump announced that members of the military will continue being paid despite the shutdown. They otherwise would miss their first paycheck on Wednesday, October 15. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comA heads up that this is your last chance to get 20% off an annual subscription to the podcast. Our first-ever discount, offering paid subscriptions for just $5/month, ends at the end of this week.Paid subscribers get access to a second weekly podcast, access to the paid subscriber chat, and recordings of live shows like our upcoming live show on November 3rd. I hope you’ll join the crew!We are less than a month away from Election Day 2025 and today we have a primer on the key races to watch.There are technically elections all over the country, in 32 states, including contests for school board, city council, sheriff and more, plus referenda of all kinds. But the real blockbuster races are the gubernatorial and legislative races in New Jersey and Virginia, the mayoral race in New York City, and the redistricting ballot initiative in California. Call it the revenge of the coasts!The New York City race, as you might have heard, is a rematch between former governor Andrew Cuomo and state assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, with perennial Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa along for the ride.In New Jersey, Democrats are starting to get angsty as the governor’s race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Republican Jack Ciattarelli looks to be a single digit race, maybe even a low single digit race.In Virginia, while the governor’s contest looks like an easier bet for Democrats than historically bluer New Jersey, that hasn’t stopped a spate of scandals from disrupting some of the down ballot statewide races.And lastly, the California fight over redistricting – Prop 50 – is already the third most expensive ballot measure in state history, with $215 million in spending as of the first week of October. The polling looks somewhat positive for Democrats hoping to gerrymander the state, but polling in such an irregular race can be tricky.With me to dive into all of this is deputy editor of Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin.

We are currently offering our first-ever discount on paid subscriptions. Right now, an annual subscription is 20% off, meaning you’ll become a paid subscriber for just $5/month. Paid subscribers get access to a second weekly podcast, including recordings of live shows like our upcoming live show on November 3rd.The government has now been shut down for 6 days and there’s no clear end in sight, let alone any palpable urgency to reach that end. During past government shutdowns, there has at least been the sense that lawmakers are earnestly trying to find a path forward. Why not this time? Perhaps we need not look any further than the polls.The bulk of polling suggests Americans blame Republicans more than Democrats for the shutdown, so Democrats aren’t feeling pressure to fold. Historical polling also suggests that the party making the demands that provoke the shutdown – in this case Democrats – are eventually seen as responsible and fold after achieving little to no policy concessions. Given that, Republicans probably aren’t feeling the pressure to compromise either.Today we dig deeper into those surveys and try to get a sense of where things might go from here. We also focus on a couple other polls that have attracted attention recently. (Yes, it’s a polling heavy day, so grab that calculator and put on those stats nerd glasses. I promise it will be fun 🤓)The New York Times released its first national poll since April, following months of newsworthy developments and political rancor, resulting in… wait for it… no discernible change in how Americans view Trump and Democrats.There’s also a new poll out of Pennsylvania showing that Democratic Senator John Fetterman is a relatively popular figure in the state. Just one important footnote: he is 20 points underwater with his own party’s voters and 40 points above water with Republicans. So is his approach a roadmap for other Democrats to win over Republican voters or a one way ticket to a primary challenge and an ouster from Washington?With me to discuss it all are friends of the podcast Mary Radcliffe and Lenny Bronner. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comWe are currently offering our first-ever discount on paid subscriptions. Right now, an annual subscription is 20% off, meaning you’ll become a paid subscriber for just $5/month. Paid subscribers get access to a second weekly podcast, including the audio and video from live shows like the one above and our upcoming live show on November 3rd.Today’s episode is a live taping of the podcast with Nate Silver and Clare Malone at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. The video version is available here.During the taping, we discuss the strategy involved in a government shutdown (it hadn’t happened at the time of the recording, but we predicted that it would come to pass). We also introduce a new segment called, “Hot Take Hat.” There was so much news to discuss that we couldn’t decide which stories to cover, so we left it to chance. As a result, we discuss the NYC mayoral race, gerrymandering, vaccines, Fed independence, and more.Lastly, we play a game of “Guess Which Comedian Said This.” It was not lost on us that we were recording the podcast in something of a sacred place for comedians, during a time when the government is challenging First Amendment principles. To mark the significance, we compete — along with the audience — to identify which comedian is responsible for some audacious excerpts of political satire.We wrap up with some very thoughtful questions from members of the audience, ranging from free speech to Trump’s energy policy.

The Left has long claimed the mantle of the party of working people. As recently as last decade, Democrats posted twenty point margins with union households. In the Trump era, the Right has posed a significant challenge to that identity. In 2024, Harris won union households by just 8 points, though as union membership has declined, that may not be the most apt measurement. Lower and middle income people have also shifted decidedly to the right.The stories that the two parties tell when trying to win over workers have variations, but generally go something like this: American workers have gotten the short end of the stick over the past half-century, as globalization and free trade have taken root, manufacturing has been hollowed out, and wages have stagnated. The Left includes blame for greedy corporations and union busting and the Right includes blame for mass migration and regulation.The majority of American adults are “working people,” and so there’s plenty of political power in claiming them as core to your coalition. That is the focus of today’s podcast. According to the data, how are workers doing and what do they think of the politicians who say they’re serving them?With me to discuss is John Lettieri, co-founder and president of the Economic Innovation Group, a bipartisan think tank. They put together plenty of economic research, including a recent poll of American workers, which they did with Echelon Insights. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.We’ve got a lot to talk about today. We cover who is actually watching late night TV, Kamala Harris’s new book, whether politicians are using AI to do their jobs, whether efforts to reduce partisan animus actually work, and the government’s move to cancel a survey measuring how many Americans are going hungry.I say we, but I actually mean me. When I launched this podcast I said that I wanted to hear directly from you, the listeners, and speak directly to you as well. I imagined that might include episodes where I’d open up the mic and do exactly that … talk to you. I did it a couple times early on, but it’s been a minute and so I want to do it again.Tentatively I’ll call this the GD Notebook. I’ll open up my notes — books, articles, and the likes — that I’ve been reading and share them along with some thoughts and answer some of your questions. Often when I read a compelling article or poll, I’ll reach out to the author or talk about it with guests on the podcast, but I read a lot of stuff and we often don’t get to all of it. I constantly have loads of tabs open on my computer with things we didn’t get to. Hopefully we can make good use of them here!Today we’re mostly going to go through my notebook, but, as a reminder, you can send in questions on the paid subscriber chat and at galen@gdpolitics.com.

When President Trump took office on January 20th, 2025, he said in his inaugural address: “After years and years of illegal and unconstitutional federal efforts to restrict free expression, I also will sign an executive order to immediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America. Never again will the immense power of the state be weaponized to persecute political opponents.”In just the past week, Trump has called critical television coverage of him “illegal,” and said that, “when 97 percent of the stories are bad about a person, it’s no longer free speech.” He’s also threatened ABC’s chief Washington correspondent to, “go after people like you,” for, “hate speech,” and urged his administration to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV stations that are “against” him. He also filed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times and threatened protesters and left wing groups with racketeering lawsuits.Additionally, Trump has urged his Attorney General Pam Bondi to target his political foes. For her part, Bondi said in a podcast interview, “There’s free speech, and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place — especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie — in our society.” She went on to say, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” She later attempted to clarify that she was referring to incitements of violence.As we discussed on the last podcast, FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened Disney and ABC’s affiliate stations over Jimmy Kimmel’s recent comments saying, “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”The Pentagon has said it will require journalists to sign a pledge refraining from reporting information that isn’t authorized for release, including unclassified information, or risk losing press credentials. And the vice president urged Americans to call the employers of anyone seen celebrating the killing of Charlie Kirk.The events of the past week add to a long list of moves that already concerned First Amendment defenders, like targeting law firms, museums, academic institutions, and career bureaucrats for expression Trump disagrees with and attempting to criminalize burning the American flag.On today’s podcast, we make sense of all of this with a longtime defender of the First Amendment, Nadine Strossen. She was the longest-serving president of the ACLU, from 1991 to 2008 and is now a senior fellow at FIRE, the Foundation For Individual Rights And Expression. She is also the author of the 2018 book, “HATE: Why We Should Resist It with Free Speech, Not Censorship” and a professor emerita at New York Law School.Throughout her career she has defended all manner of expression, ranging from the alt-right in Charlottesville, to free speech on campuses, to pornography, to flag burning, to criticizing the PATRIOT ACT. Perhaps most poignantly, as the daughter of a holocaust survivor, she has spoken in favor of the right of neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, a case that predated her at the ACLU. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.On today’s podcast we talk about two shutdowns: the indefinite preemption of Jimmy Kimmel Live! and the possibility that Democrats will shut the government down at the end of the month.Wednesday night Jimmy Kimmel went the way of FiveThirtyEight (at least for now), when ABC preempted his show indefinitely. In a monologue on the show he had appeared to suggest that Charlie Kirk’s killer was a Republican, saying "The MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it."On Wednesday, FCC chair Brendan Carr appeared to threaten Disney over the comments saying, “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and, “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel, or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”This has all caused outrage over the suggestion of government coercion and censorship and it comes not long after Attorney General Pam Bondi characterized the First Amendment as not covering hate speech.Today on the podcast, Mary Radcliffe, Nathaniel Rakich, and I react to the developments and the broader political environment in the aftermath of Kirk’s killing. We also debate whether Democrats should shut the government down.

We have a special guest on the podcast today: former FiveThirtyEight Politics podcaster, staff writer at The New Yorker, and dear friend, Clare Malone.As a reminder Clare, Nate Silver and I will be taping a live show at the Comedy Cellar in New York City on September 29th. Tickets are available here.In this installment of the podcast, Clare and I catch up on some of the latest news in politics and media. We talk about the political and emotional reverberations from Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the strange bedfellows who have found common cause in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, and we dig through the most recent polling in the New York City mayoral race.We also debate the potency of Democrats’ messaging about Trump’s “culture of corruption,” as well as the meaning of Kamala Harris’s new book. Lastly, we discuss what the recent Murdoch family settlement means for the future of conservative media. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.I recorded today’s podcast on Wednesday before the news broke that Charlie Kirk was killed, so I want to take a moment to address it at the start.It’s despicable and saddening. It’s sad on a human level and sad on a national level. On a human level, my heart goes out to Charlie’s family and his young children. On a national level, it’s a horrific situation to be in that someone was murdered while engaging in debate on a college campus. People must feel safe to speak their minds in a free country — left, right, center, controversial or not.At the time I’m writing this, we don’t have details about the perpetrator, but all indications point toward political violence. If you’re a longtime listener, you’ve been alongside me for far too much political violence: multiple assassination attempts against President Trump, January 6th, the shooting of Steve Scalise, the shooting of two state lawmakers in Minnesota, the El Paso Walmart shooting, the Brian Thompson shooting, this assassination of Charlie Kirk, and more.Partisans may focus on blaming a political party. We know from evidence that’s not helpful. The best way to prevent future political violence is for all leaders to condemn it in the clearest, strongest terms whenever it happens, by whoever it’s committed. Evidence also suggests that it’s a very small number of Americans who see violence as an acceptable form of political behavior. Tragically, though, all it takes is one person to wreak havoc on our nation and our system.It’s heartening to see the most prominent Democratic leaders condemning the violence in absolute terms. It’s disheartening to see left-wing provocateurs celebrating and right-wing provocateurs describing this as a call to arms.For my part, this is the whole ballgame. Decreasing political discord and engendering a shared sense of fate amongst Americans is one of the things I care most about. I hope I never have to cite statistics or evidence about the number of Americans who support political violence again on the GD POLITICS podcast. I sadly know that’s unlikely.It’s hard to feel optimistic at a moment like this, but I do feel thankful for the positive community we have here on this podcast. So thank you for that and my prayers are with Charlie Kirk’s family.The bulk of today’s show focuses on recent elections and questions from listeners. We got a lot of great questions, so please continue sending them in. We talk about why Trump’s approval rating has been holding up better now than in his first term, whether all those spam calls and texts are making it harder to poll, and how young voters’ priorities are diverging along gender and partisan lines. We’ve also got some recent election news, including the special election in Virginia and a national election in Norway.With me to discuss all of that and more is friend of the pod and senior data scientist at the Washington Post Lenny Bronner.

Tuesday is Election Day in Virginia’s 11th congressional district. Call it an amuse bouche for Virginia’s statewide elections this November.The special election, following Democrat Gerry Connolly’s death in office, isn’t expected to be competitive. Harris won the district by 34 percentage points, but it gives us one more data point to assess how the parties are doing in special elections. So far this year, Democrats are over-performing by double digits.On today’s podcast we also discuss Friday’s job numbers and whether they’ll add to Americans’ pessimism about Trump’s handling of the economy. It’s a very different dynamic to Trump’s first term, when Americans approved of Trump’s handling of the economy even if they didn’t like him overall.Plus, a recent New York Times analysis of population trends paints a dire picture for Democrats Electoral College math next decade, with red states gaining electors and blue states losing them. Is it “Good Data, Bad Data, or Not Data?”Joining me are two trusty hands: Nathaniel Rakich and Mary Radcliffe. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.It’s hard to open the news these days and not get the sense that American democracy is on the fritz. And I’m not just talking about if you’re mainlining MSNBC. Within the past week, a headline at the Financial Times reads: “US sliding towards 1930s-style autocracy, warns Ray Dalio.”The Wall Street Journal reads: “In Trump’s Second Term, a Bolder President Charges Ahead Unchecked. Trump is frequently riffing on authoritarianism and ignoring caution from advisers.” The New York Times reads: “Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science.”President Trump has tested and – according to the courts – exceeded the bounds of his power while in office.He’s deployed the National Guard against governors' wishes, levied tariffs of all manner, frozen funding to universities, cut off law firms from federal contracts, fast tracked deportations using the Alien Enemies Act, fired a Fed governor and heads of independent agencies, installed allies at the Department of Justice… the list goes on.Some of this may fall into the category of “things that Democrats don’t like,” and the remedy for that is to win elections. Some of it may be illegal. And in those instances, the remedy is the courts.One of the most important tests of our system is whether the courts recognize breaches of the law when they happen and whether involved parties comply with court rulings once they’re made.So on today’s podcast I want to get beyond what can sometimes feel like a nebulous freakout and talk about the cases asserting that Trump has exceeded his power and check in on where they stand.According to Just Security, there are at least 390 legal challenges to the Trump administration's actions, so we don’t get to all of them, but we touch on some key ones. With me to do that is Professor of Law at Cardozo, Jessica Roth. She’s also the co-director of the Center for Ethics in the Practice of Law and a former federal prosecutor.

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers at gdpolitics.comEven before the mid-decade gerrymandering wars began, the 2026 midterms were on track to feature the fewest competitive House districts in modern elections.According to Cook Political Report’s ratings, 84 percent of House districts are solidly in one camp and another 7 percent are likely Republican or Democrat. That means 91 percent of districts aren’t particularly competitive and 30 states don’t have a single competitive election for the House. Current gerrymandering efforts are likely to take more competitive districts off the table.It’s a tricky moment for – well, the country – and also for good government groups that have long pursued election reforms like independent redistricting commissions. Common Cause, which has frequently sued over partisan gerrymandering, said it won’t fight California over its proposed gerrymander.According to the nonpartisan group Unite America, which has also pursued independent redistricting reforms, this makes reforms to primary elections – where the vast majority of the midterm elections will essentially be decided – all the more important.Unite America advocates for “open primaries” in which all voters (Republican, Democrat, and unaligned) can cast a ballot, and candidates from all parties compete together. They also advocate for instant runoffs in general elections, known as ranked choice voting.Joining me on today’s podcast to make the case for these reforms is Richard Barton, a fellow at Unite America and political science professor at Syracuse University. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

We’ve got a podcast full of election updates today. We kick things off with the latest in the gerrymandering wars. Both Texas and California approved new maps in their state legislatures. For Texas, that makes it pretty much a done deal, pending lawsuits. For California, that means the maps now go to the voters to approve and we have some new polling on what they think at the start of all of this.Now eyes are turning to Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, and Florida for more Republican gerrymandering and to New York, Illinois, Maryland, Oregon and Virginia for more Democratic gerrymandering. Although, much of the Democratic gerrymandering may have to wait a cycle.Next we look to the New York City mayoral race, one of the hottest items of the fall’s off-year elections. It’s getting about as New York as you can imagine. There’s more scandal surrounding Eric Adams, including one associate trying to bribe a reporter with cash stuffed in a bag of Herr’s potato chips. Zohran Mamdani led his supporters on a city-wide scavenger hunt and got panned online for failing to do a bench press rep solo at a campaign event. And Cuomo is attracting big money from Mamdani-skeptic New Yorkers, with his super PAC raising 1.3 million in a single week.We also check in on the national environment, lest we get to Texas, California and New York-centric. With me to do it all is my former colleague and newly minted Chief Election Analyst at Decision Desk HQ Geoffrey Skelley. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Do moderate candidates do better in elections? It’s a question that has rocked the online world of election data nerds in recent days.There has been hair pulling, locker stuffing, and swirly giving. Sorry, I mean, there has been online snark, Substack posts and replies, competing Twitter and Bluesky threads, academic credential waving, and accusations of bias.What started this whole thing is a little metric called WAR, which is oftentimes used in sports and means “wins above replacement.” Basically, how well does a particular politician perform in an election compared to how a generic candidate from their own party would have done.The folks at SplitTicket, helmed by Lakshya Jain, have been using this metric to analyze electoral politics for a while and have found that the benefit to being a moderate is notable. From 2018 to 2024, according to their data, Blue Dog Democrats did about 5 percentage points better than progressive Democrats in House elections.The folks at Strength In Numbers, helmed by Elliott Morris, recently published their own version of WAR, showing a smaller benefit to political moderation, about a 1 to 1.5 percentage point benefit, with significant uncertainty bands around those numbers. Elliott concluded in an article that moderation is overrated in electoral politics.This initial disagreement sparked a broader debate between other Substackers, academics, and election wonks who took one side or another.Today, for the first time since this debate began, the two sides sit down together to hash it out on the GD POLITICS podcast. Joining me on this episode are Lakshya Jain and Elliott Morris. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The gerrymandering wars are continuing apace. Texas Democratic legislators are returning to their state this week after leaving in order to block a Republican attempt to redraw the state’s congressional maps. Their return means Texas Republicans can move forward with their gerrymandered maps, which aim to add five Republicans to the state’s congressional ranks.California Governor Gavin Newsom has kicked off his own retaliatory gambit, attempting to add five seats to the Democratic roster in his state, with new maps that will be considered by the California legislature this week and – if all goes to plan – considered by California voters in a referendum this fall.Speaking of gambits, Ipsos announced that it is partnering with Stanford to create AI survey respondents that are twinned with real people. Is this “Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data?” And will survey respondents be the first casualties of the great AI job displacement?Also, as we sat down to record Monday morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders were meeting with President Trump to present their vision for how to bring about an end to the war in Ukraine, after Trump seemed to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin last Friday.Trump’s relationship with Russia was a highly scrutinized part of his first term, but what do Americans think now? And how involved do they want the US to be in ending the war in Ukraine?With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod, Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.As students begin to head back to school, American higher education is in its most fraught position in recent memory. Most prominent among the challenges is President Trump’s pressure campaign against elite universities.There have been federal funding freezes linked to accusations that schools haven’t done enough to stem anti-semitism and remove race considerations from admissions. There have also been cuts to scientific research, roadblocks for international student visas, and new limits on federal student loans.There are also broader concerns about higher education that predate Trump or have little to do with him: The rising cost of tuition, concerns about the return on investment, and the growing gender imbalance amongst those who graduate. Women now receive about 60 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the U.S.To top it all off, there are emerging questions about whether artificial intelligence will shrink the availability of entry level jobs that a degree prepares many students for.On today’s episode we get into as many of these challenges as possible with Preston Cooper. He’s an economist and senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. He’s done extensive research into the value proposition of American higher education, and has estimated the return on investment of 53,000 different degree and certificate programs across the country.

Low-key, the whole political scene is such an L right now. Everyone’s either gaslighting, rage farming, or displaying NPC behavior. American politics is just vibe-check after vibe-check, but it’s mostly giving flop era with zero accountability.If you’re confused as to why I — a millennial podcaster — am writing like a Gen Z TikToker, it’s because today we are talking about how the Internet shapes our language and in doing so also shapes our culture and politics. (Also, yes, in case you were wondering, ChatGPT wrote that.)Today, the spread of ideas happens in large part on social media, where what content gets promoted or demoted or even what words we are allowed to use is largely determined by algorithms. This has created a new dynamic where algorithms are increasingly influencing how we communicate.A simple example might be the emergence of the word “unalive,” because social media platforms banned content about suicide, but it goes well beyond that.This is the argument Adam Aleksic lays out in his new book, “Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language.” Adam is a linguist known online as “Etymology Nerd.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode is available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.We’ve got lots of election updates for you today. It’s that time of the cycle when potential candidates are increasingly making moves. As you probably heard, Kamala Harris is not running for governor of California, which has opened up a crowded primary there.Longtime New York Congressman Jerry Nadler got a primary challenger from a 26-year old who is making Nadler’s old age a prime issue. The blockbuster Texas Senate primary is continuing to heat up on both sides.And, of course, the Texas legislature has released its newly gerrymandered maps, with the goal of adding to five seats to Republicans’ congressional numbers in what will likely be a tough midterm for the party.Oh, and lest we forget, we are three months away from Election Day 2025, which will feature statewide elections in New Jersey and Virginia.Today we talk about all that and focus in particular on the Senate. Inside Elections just released its overview for the Senate in 2026 and lucky for us our guest today is the deputy editor of Inside Elections, Jacob Rubashkin.

On Friday morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs numbers for July. The nation provisionally added 73,000 jobs, shy of the 100,000 jobs expected. It wasn’t particularly good news.More newsworthy, though, were the downward revisions for May and June. What had initially been reported as just shy of 150,000 jobs added each month, turned out to be closer to just 15,000 jobs per month. Quite plainly bad news.The Trump administration first went to work spinning the numbers as the result of seasonal adjustments. By the afternoon, President Trump claimed on social media that the numbers were manipulated for political reasons and said that he’d directed his team to fire the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer.I probably don’t need to tell you, dear listener, that this raises red flags. If you listen to this podcast, it’s probably because – in addition to finding me charming (lol) – you value what data can tell us about the world as it is, not the world as we might wish it to be.For now, the acting director of the BLS is William Wiatrowski, the former deputy director. But the administration has said they’ll replace him within a matter of days and the question now is whether that new person might apply pressure within the bureau to make economic data look more like the president wishes it to be.That’s what we discuss on today’s podcast and we’ve got an all star lineup to do it. Joining me is economics department chair at George Washington University Tara Sinclair. She’s been a visiting scholar at the St. Louis and Atlanta Fed banks, a technical advisor at the Bureau of Labor statistics, and founding chief economist at the job search site Indeed. Also with us is Ben Casselman, the chief economics correspondent at the New York Times, who worked with me at FiveThirtyEight back in the day. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.Today we are opening up the mailbag and answering some of your questions!I want to start with a reminder of how you can get in touch to submit your questions. First, there’s the paid subscriber chat that you get access to when you become a paid subscriber to the podcast. I’ll prioritize the questions in there. You can also get in touch on X or Bluesky and you can reach out at galen@gdpolitics.com.On today’s episode there are questions about public opinion on the war in Gaza, which actually coincided with some new polling out this week. There are questions about the youth vote, as well as President Trump’s conflict with American universities.Someone wanted to know if voters would be willing to elect a gay president and also what happened to Fivey Fox, the FiveThirtyEight mascot. Those were two separate questions, although Fivey Fox would make a great candidate if you ask me.There was one question about why Trump often deflects questions by punting for specifically “two weeks.” Is that how long it takes people to forget about a story?We got questions about the midterms and elections this fall, but we’re doing an episode on that soon, so I’m going to save those.With me to help answer your questions is my dear friend and political data extraordinaire Lenny Bronner. He’s a senior data scientist at the Washington Post.

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The last time I spoke with today’s guest it was late September of 2021 and I started the podcast by citing recent FBI crime data: “The murder rate increased by 30 percent from 2019 to 2020 meaning 4,900 more people were killed in homicides in 2020 than the year prior. That amounts to the largest single year increase since records began in 1960.”Today the story is very different. Data from the first half of the year suggests that the U.S. is on track to have the largest one-year drop in murder on record for the third straight year. The absolute numbers are also remarkable. Los Angeles, Baltimore and Detroit have all recorded the fewest murders at this point in the year since the mid-1960s. San Francisco has recorded the fewest murders ever and so has New York City (spare one year, 2017). Violent crime more broadly and property crime are also at or near historic lows.It’s a major success story that has already attracted competing explanations and ideological debate. It has also gone largely unnoticed by Americans. Sixty-four percent say there is more crime now than there was last year, according to Gallup. Although that’s a noticeable drop from 2023, when 77 percent said there was more crime, it still leaves the majority of Americans with the wrong impression.With me to talk about it all is Jeff Asher. He’s worked as a data analyst for the New Orleans police department and the CIA. He’s also the co-founder of AH Datalytics and writes about crime data at Jeff-alytics on Substack. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.A year ago, this week began with President Joe Biden announcing that he was withdrawing from the 2024 election. The decision came about three weeks after his mess of a debate performance that set off a revolt within the Democratic Party. By July 23, 2024, Kamala Harris had secured endorsements from enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomination.We all know now how the story ended, and looking at the data after the fact, the result doesn’t seem particularly surprising. No incumbent ever won re-election with an approval rating as bad as Biden’s. The number of Americans saying that the country was headed in the wrong direction was around all-time highs. And on the two biggest issues Americans were concerned about, inflation and immigration, Americans preferred Donald Trump.That gives us some sense of why the election shook out the way it did, but those numbers don’t explain everything. For example, why did Biden decide to run for re-election in the first place? Or frankly, why did Donald Trump himself run for a rare non-consecutive term. How did Biden and Harris decide how to address Americans’ biggest concerns? And why the lack of daylight after Harris took the reins?Today, with the help of reporters Josh Dawsey and Tyler Pager, we go behind the scenes of the 2024 campaign. Josh is a political investigative reporter at the Wall Street Journal and Tyler is a White House Correspondent for the New York Times. Their new book is called, “2024: How Trump Retook the White House and Democrats Lost America.”

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.If you scan some of the latest headlines, it looks like President Trump is finally facing the scandal that will do him in: “​​Trump Fumes at Epstein Mess as Polls Reveal Big GOP Revolt,” reads The New Republic. “Donald Trump Suffers Major Polling Blow Over Jeffrey Epstein Files,” reads Newsweek.The Epstein story has indeed had some staying power and Trump’s approval rating has also been sliding, but is it “Good Data, Bad Data or Not Data” to draw a connection between the two? We answer that question on today’s podcast.We also take a closer look at how Americans are thinking about the economy. It’s a tricky moment. Inflation is up, but only modestly. It still looks like more tariffs are likely on their way, which is one of the reasons the Fed says it isn’t lowering interest rates, though Trump is threatening the independence of the Fed. And more economists are raising alarms about the national debt.And finally, we have a redistricting update. Republicans in Texas are suggesting they’ll redraw the state’s congressional maps to their benefit before the midterms and Gavin Newsom says he’ll fight gerrymandering with gerrymandering and do the same in California if they follow through.With me to discuss it all are two dear friends of the pod, Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.The Nordic countries have come to play an outsized role in the American political imagination. Denmark, a country of six million people, roughly the size of Wisconsin, is by now used to being called out by both the American left and right as an example of a socialist country.For Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it’s an example of an ideal system worth trying to emulate at home. For Fox News commentators and the Trump administration, it’s mentioned alongside Venezuela and has been featured in an administration report on the opportunity costs of socialism.There’s just one problem. The Nordic countries don’t see themselves as socialist. In fact, that $1,000 a month Ozempic prescription everyone’s talking about? It comes courtesy of Novo Nordisk, a Danish company listed on the Copenhagen and New York Stock exchanges with the highest valuation of any company in Europe.While its profits are taxed to help fund government programs, if that’s socialism, then maybe America is already socialist. The U.S. corporate tax rate is 21 percent and the Danish corporate tax rate is 22 percent. Danish companies can hire and fire at will and there are no minimum wage laws.On Today’s podcast we get a different perspective on the Nordic countries and socialism from an actual Nordic socialist. Pelle Dragsted is a member of Danish Parliament and leader of the country’s furthest left party in parliament, the Red-Green Alliance.In 2021, he wrote the book “Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward A Democratic Economy” in response to the attention his country’s system was getting and as an argument for socialism. It’s now been translated into English.

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.There’s little doubt that America faces a health conundrum. We spent nearly 18 percent of GDP on health in 2023. The average per person was $13,400 dollars, roughly double the amount spent in comparable countries.Meanwhile, the results are lacking. American life expectancy at birth is 78 years, about 5 years shorter than the average of similar countries. And nearly 75 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, with 12 percent having diabetes.I could keep citing statistics, but you get the point.The Trump administration has set out to, in its own words, “Make America Healthy Again.” And while the similarly named commission’s first report got a lot of attention for faulty citations, it’s also surprisingly blunt about some of the challenges the country faces. Perhaps more so than any other recent administration.That blunt assessment, though, has been paired with changes that critics say pose more challenges to American health: funding cuts to the Food and Drug Administration, cuts to research on things like the impact of chemicals on health, changes to eligibility for medicaid, food stamps, and Affordable Care Act subsidies, and replacing the vaccine advisory panel at the CDC.American health finds itself in a position not so different from other issues under President Trump. An administration that is more candid about naming the problem than many others in politics, but with some controversial and even self-defeating solutions.With me to talk about it all is the dean of the school of public health at Washington University in St. Louis, Sandro Galea. He’s authored many books and also writes about public health on the Substack “The Healthiest Goldfish.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe full episode and video are available to paid subscribers. Once you become a paid subscriber, you can connect your account to your preferred podcast player by following the directions here.What was the first election ever accurately predicted by a poll? And how far off the mark was that poll? Also, which elections had the highest and lowest turnout t…

First and foremost, I want to say I’m thinking of everyone affected by the flash flooding in Texas. The details are heart wrenching and here’s to hoping that everyone stays safe as more flooding appears to be on its way.We start off today’s episode taking a look back at how Republicans managed to pass a tax and spending bill that so many of the party’s own caucus seemed to take issue with. We also look ahead to the kinds of political fights we expect to emerge over the legislation.Plus, Elon Musk says it’s official that he’s starting an America Party. We all know the structural challenges that lie ahead if he actually does it, but what’s the most optimistic case for America (the party, not the country) and the most pessimistic? Also, the pause on President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs expires on Wednesday. The betting markets are wagering that it’s going to be another case of TACO.We didn’t have time to get to it in this episode, but we also played a game of historical election data trivia to mark the beginning of America’s semiquincentennial year. That will be in the feed for paid subscribers later this week.Joining me is Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections, and Leah Askarinam, reporter at the Associated Press. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

I’ve been doing the podcast rounds this week, chatting with the folks at The Bulwark and Raging Moderates. If you heard me there and are new to this podcast, I want to say a big welcome! I’m glad you’re here! For regular listeners who want to hear me spout off, you can find some of that spouting in those feeds.I also talked to Gabe Fleisher of Waking Up To Politics in a live Substack chat on Wednesday and you’re gonna hear part of that conversation in this episode. For context, Gabe is 23 and has been writing a political newsletter since he was nine years old. So, although I’m a decade older than him, we’ve been at this about the same amount of time.We began by talking about the piece I wrote in the Times last week. I won’t make you re-listen to all of that. I also had a conversation with Nathaniel Rakich about the piece, which is further down in this feed, titled “Why Democrats Need Their Own Trump.”Gabe and I chatted while the House was considering the bill formerly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The conversation begins with a good question that Gabe asked me: Trump campaigned as a populist but hasn’t necessarily governed that way, promoting policies like OBBBA that are more standard Republican fare. So, is he going to be able to actually transform the Republican Party longterm into a more populist party? Take a listen! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Even by the standards of Trump-era news cycles, the back half of June has been a doozy. Remember when the L.A. immigration raids and protests were leading the news? That was only two weeks ago.Since then, we’ve had a military parade, nationwide protests, Israel went to war with Iran, the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, there was a historic heatwave, Zohran Mamdani won the New York City mayoral primary, the Supreme Court ruled to severely limit nationwide injunctions, and the U.S. stock market hit an all-time record.And we’re not done yet! President Trump is hoping to get the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed by July 4th.In this episode I speak with Mary Radcliffe and Lenny Bronner about how Americans are reacting to everything that’s going on. We also check out a new analysis of special elections since Trump took office. Yes, Democrats are over-performing, but not to the same degree everywhere. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comNew York State Rep. Zohran Mamdani seriously outperformed expectations in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary on Tuesday, well positioning himself to win the general election this fall.The election had become a two-way race between Mamdani and former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, with polls projecting the results would likely be close enough …

The video version of this podcast is available here.Last week I had the chance to speak with Republican Senator from Alaska Lisa Murkowski at length. She was candid about many things: Her openness to the idea of leaving the G.O.P, her aversion to bombing Iran, and the safety concerns involved in being a lawmaker during a period of increased political violence.She also discussed her feelings about Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s performance on the Supreme Court (after voting not to confirm him), her likelihood of supporting the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” and why she thinks the U.S. shouldn’t have closed primaries.Sen. Murkowski has represented Alaska in the U.S. Senate since 2002 and her new book is called, “Far From Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C.” Our conversation took place on Thursday, June 19. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.I’m sure you’ve all seen the news about the United States’ attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities over the weekend. It’s a fast moving situation that we are going to talk about on future episodes of this podcast.It also happens that I wrote an op-ed about presidential politics that is in The New York Times today. I wanted to publish a podcast elaborating on my thinking around the op-ed and that’s what today’s episode is. In a nutshell, it’s about the lessons that can be learned from how Trump ran against his own party and outflanked it from both the right and the left in 2016. By the way, today’s episode was recorded before Saturday’s attack.To give you a sense of the rest of the week, I also recently recorded an interview with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, which is going to be in your feeds on Tuesday. The first question I asked her was whether she thought the US should bomb Iran and she was candid on that and many other topics. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.If you find the title of this episode confusing, the cold open should help clear things up. I believe it’s the longest cold open I’ve ever done for a podcast. Enjoy!On a more serious note, we’ve got an awful lot to talk about today. I had originally planned to open up the mailbag and answer listener questions (which we still do), but before we get to that, Nathaniel Rakich and I talk about some of the news since the last episode.Last Thursday evening Israel began bombing Iranian military targets with the goal of preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and the two countries have continued to exchange fire in the days since.Friday night, a man who’s now in custody shot two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses, killing state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband and wounding state Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz described the attack as “targeted political violence.”On Saturday, President Trump hosted a military parade in Washington, DC marking the 250th birthday of the U.S. military, which also happened to be his birthday, and protesters gathered around the country under the banner “No Kings.”Not that we need anything more to discuss, but today, June 16th also happens to be the 10th anniversary of Trump’s descent down that escalator and entrance into presidential politics. Nathaniel and I bring some data to try to make sense of it all. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comNate Silver and I went live on Substack Thursday afternoon to sort though some of the messy politics of the moment: There are the immigration raids in Los Angeles and the response from protesters and the Trump administration. There’s a competitive Democratic primary for mayor of New York City. Elon Musk seems to be back in the fold after threatening to …

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The contours of the 2026 midterms are taking shape in House districts across the country. Inside Elections just released their most up to date ratings, so today we spotlight five districts to watch, across Colorado, Maine, New York, Washington and Iowa. Democrats only need to flip three seats in order to gain control of the House, but how deep into Republican territory are they trying to compete?We also get into last week’s breakup between Donald Trump and Elon Musk. A recent piece in POLITICO argues, based on the polling, that “Musk boasts his own base of support that exists outside traditional partisan boundaries, particularly marked by the parasocial relationship young men have with him. That makes him a danger to the fragile coalition Republicans relied on in 2024.” Is that a good take based on the data?With me to discuss it all is Jacob Rubashkin, Deputy Editor at Inside Elections. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Prepare to get nerdy today. We dig into the most rigorous data available on how different parts of the electorate voted in 2024.

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.What do Americans think about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)? And is the acronym pronounced “OH-bah” or “ABBA?”For our purposes I think we’ll go with “ABBA,” so, will this be a case of The Winner Takes It All? Or will this be Republicans’ Waterloo? (This one’s for you ABBA fans!)In any case, the House narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act just before Memorial Day. Senate Republicans now have to figure out what they want to do with it. And while they do that, on today’s podcast we figure out how Americans are reacting to it. We also look at what Americans think of Trump’s broader agenda, much of which is being enacted through executive actions.We’ve got a lot of polling from our friends at YouGov to help us do that and they’ve also got a new survey out testing Americans’ self-regard. Do Americans think they are trustworthy? Smart? Good at driving? Good at running? And how do the sexes view themselves differently?Joining me to get into it all is Carl Bialik, US politics editor and VP of data science at YouGov, and Taylor Orth, Director of Survey Data Journalism at YouGov. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

I hope everyone had a nice Memorial Day Weekend!If you’ve paid any attention to politics over the past decade you know that one of the most important ways America’s coalitions have changed is that Democrats have done increasingly well among voters with college degrees, while Republicans have done increasingly well among voters without them. In a country in which 63 percent of people don’t have a degree, that’s a losing proposition for Democrats.The challenge facing Democrats runs deeper than strictly whether their voters completed a bachelor’s program. We talk about educational attainment so much, in part, because it's easily measured. We collect education data on the census and pollsters routinely ask respondents about it. But often when we talk about the diploma divide, we’re actually talking about something more complicated. We’re talking about class.Class can shape all kinds of things about ourselves, including – importantly for our purposes – what we value in our leaders and how we want them to solve our problems. That is the topic of the new book by Joan C. Williams, “Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back,” and she’s today’s guest on the podcast.GD POLITICS is a listener-supported podcast. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber here. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comThe video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.The latest techniques in polling, why less engaged voters rate Trump's performance more highly, and a new game!

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Economic forecasting has often been as much of an art as a science, but since the pandemic it seems to have turned into a full on Jackson Pollock painting.Remember when Biden-era inflation was transitory? Or when a recession was a 100 percent certainty at the start of 2022? Or how about when President Trump’s election to a second term marked the start of renewed boom times? You’d be forgiven if you started to think folks were just flinging s**t at a wall.But even in this era of uncertainty and folly, this moment feels especially disorienting. What is the deal with all the on-again-off-again tariffs? Are the latest promising inflation numbers the calm before the storm? And what do Republicans actually want to do about the deficit, or Medicaid, or taxes?Lucky for us, if anyone can make sense of this economic Jackson Pollock, it’s our guest on today’s podcast. Neil Irwin is the Chief Economic Correspondent at Axios. He’s also the author of "The Alchemists" and "How to Win." This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comToday’s podcast is a little bit different. When I launched GD POLITICS, I said that I wanted to hear directly from you and speak directly to you, building a community as we go. I hope you already feel a part of that community, but to that end, I want to occasionally do podcasts where I update you, share thoughts, and answer your questions. So, today it’s just me!

America got its first pope! I was sitting next to one of about 30 Indiana University study abroad students on my flight back from Madrid on Saturday and my seat mate told me that her whole dorm was live streaming the smoke from the Sistine Chapel. As she recounted, everyone went crazy when “America won.” You love to see it!I’m not just interested in the pope as part of this podcast’s religious community revival agenda (I kid). I’m interested in the pope because for the first time ever, he is a registered voter in Illinois. We’ve got some receipts from his primary voting record as well as his subtweets of the president on social media.Also, some big Republican names are sitting out of marquee 2026 Senate races. Last week Georgia governor Brian Kemp said he’s declining to challenge Jon Ossoff, meaning the party is missing out on its strongest recruit for its strongest pickup prospect. Last month Chris Sununu also declined to run for New Hampshire’s open Senate seat.With me to discuss the pope and the Senate are two dear friends of the pod, Mary Radcliffe and Nathaniel Rakich. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

In the U.S., Trump’s popularity hit a new low of net -10 percentage points right as he clocked 100 days in office. Abroad, the political impact of Trump’s first 100 days is perhaps more tangible. In both Canada and Australia, the center-Left parties, which looked destined for defeat just months ago, came roaring back in recent elections.A week ago, Canada’s Liberal Party won the most seats in parliament, ensuring Prime Minister Mark Carney would stay in office for the party’s fourth consecutive term in control of government. This past weekend, Australia’s Labour Party secured a second term for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, expanding its majority in what Australian analysts have been calling a landslide.Joining me today are two friends of the podcast, author of The Writ, Eric Grenier, and author of 338 Canada, Philippe Fournier. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

There’s rarely more attention paid to religion than when one pope passes and the College of Cardinals gathers to select another. Maybe it’s because the grandeur and secrecy of it all makes for a compelling news story, maybe it’s because 1.4 billion Catholics around the world really do care about the outcome, or maybe the weight of a millennia old tradition captures our imagination in a rapidly changing world.Whatever the reason, it gives us on the GD POLITICS podcast an opportunity to reflect on the role that religion plays in society and politics today. And it’s a pretty complex story, at least in the US. After a rapid rise of people who don’t consider themselves part of any religion over the past 20 years, that trend line seems to have plateaued or maybe even reversed slightly.On today’s podcast, I’m joined by someone who spends his days pouring over just about all the data out there on religion in America. Ryan Burge is a professor at Eastern Illinois University, he writes the Graphs About Religion Substack and until very recently was himself a Baptist Pastor. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.gdpolitics.comOnly paid subscribers have access to the full-length video and audio of the show, so make sure to subscribe!We discussed the search for a new pope, 100 days of Trump, played a game and answered questions from a sold out audience in New York City

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.If the data tells a story, there’s one person you can count on to narrate it. Friend of the pod and chief data reporter at the Financial Times, John Burn-Murdoch, has for years been catching readers’ attention with charts that highlight just how society and politics are changing: social classes stratifying, innumeracy and illiteracy rising, birth rates dropping, gender gaps widening, American life expectancy stalling out.Lately, his work on economic and social reactions to Trump’s second term have been literally jumping off the page. In a chart showing plummeting European tourism to the United States, Icelandic tourism decreased so much it got cropped off the page. The US economic uncertainty index grew so much it also extended off the axis, dwarfing the great recession and covid pandemic.So I could think of no one better to talk about some of the ways the data is telling the story of our evolving American and global politics than John Burn-Murdoch himself. He joined me on the latests installment of the GD POLITICS podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

This is an audio preview of the full draft, which is available to paid subscribers here.On Wednesday afternoon, Nate Silver and I went live on Substack to host our first ever 2028 Democratic primary draft. We said it was “way-too-early,” but I’m not sure that’s right. The potential candidates themselves certainly don’t seem to think so. Look at just about any ambitious Democrat and it will be clear that they are making moves: doing arena tours, starting podcasts, showcasing their abilities to “get sh*t done.” So we took the opportunity to put our early assumptions for 2028 on the record. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Americans have had a lot to digest politically and economically over the past couple weeks. Trump’s volatile approach to tariffs began basically as soon as he took office, with Canada and Mexico being the first targets, but so-called “Liberation Day” marked the start of something akin to full blown chaos.It’s one of those times when you want as up-to-date data as possible, and lucky for us, our guest had just that. Kristen Soltis Anderson is a longtime friend of the pod. She’s the founder of Echelon Insights, which works with Republican campaigns and is a contributor to the New York Times and CNN. Her latest verrified voter survey came out of the field this morning, and shows some concerning signs for Republicans on the economy. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Nathaniel Rakich, Mary Radcliffe and I say goodbye to FiveThirtyEight (and talk about Gavin Newsom's podcast). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.We recorded this podcast before markets closed on Monday, but at one point during the day the S&P 500 dipped into bear market territory — 20 percent off its recent high — before rebounding. In the two days following President Trump’s Liberation Day tariff announcement, the markets posted a 10 percent loss, the biggest two-day drop since the Covid crash.On this episode of the podcast, Elliott Morris and Mary Radcliffe join me to talk about some of the math behind what Trump says he’s doing and how the public is reacting. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

In one of the biggest election nights of the year, liberal judge Susan Crawford easily won a state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin and Democrats overperformed by double digits in two Florida congressional races.Deputy editor of Inside Elections Jacob Rubashkin and political reporter at The 19th Grace Panetta joined me to break down the results.GD POLITICS is a listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court race serves as a test of how voters in the consummate battleground state are feeling ten weeks into Trump’s second term, and one of the main themes of Trump’s presidency is taking center stage: the role that Elon Musk is playing in government.The race is nominally nonpartisan, but liberal judge Susan Crawford and conservative judge Brad Schimel have been very clear about where they stand on state and even national politics. At stake is the ideological balance of the state’s court, which flipped to liberal for the first time since 2008 in 2023.Director of the Marquette Law School Poll Charles Franklin and Political Reporter for CBS58 Milwaukee Emilee Fannon joined me to talk about it all.Subscribe to GD POLITICS at www.gdpolitics.com and wherever you listen to podcasts! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

At the start of the year it looked like Canada was getting ready to repeat a political story we’ve seen play out across the globe. After decades-high levels of inflation, amid a shortage of affordable housing and a backlash to liberal immigration policies, the unpopular incumbent, the Liberals, seemed destined for electoral defeat.But then two things happened: On January 6th, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, boasting a mere 22 percent approval rating, announced he would resign. And two weeks later, President Trump took office, talking about turning Canada into America’s 51st state and threatening many — and then levying some — new tariffs on Canada.I could think of no one better to talk to about all this than the election forecasters of Canada: Philippe Fournier, Editor-in-Chief of 338Canada and Eric Grenier, author of The Writ.The video version of the podcast is available to paid subscribers here. Subscribe to GD POLITICS at www.gdpolitics.com and wherever you listen to podcasts! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Nate Silver joins me for a wide ranging and candid interview on the inaugural episode of the GD POLITICS podcast. We talk about what it was like behind the scenes at FiveThirtyEight, Elon Musk’s increasingly erratic behavior, and much more. The video version of the podcast is available to paid subscribers here. Subscribe to GD POLITICS at www.gdpolitics.com and wherever you listen to podcasts! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe

Welcome to the GD POLITICS podcast! I hope you'll subscribe in your favorite podcast app and at www.gdpolitics.com. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.gdpolitics.com/subscribe